Verdict
For the biggest sports nuts, there’s an admirable amount to watch, but the biggest ESPN games are rarely found on this standalone service. It’s a ‘best of rest’ platform that’ll feel unessential to most, but a must-have for diehards. However, the standalone price and lack of 4K is hard to stomach in 2024.
Pros
- Big time live sport from around the world
- 30-for-30 documentaries are great
- A must for UFC nuts
- Cheap with a Hulu and Disney bundle
Cons
- Expensive as a standalone service
- No 4K, HDR, or Dolby Atmos
- Biggest events still exclusive to regular ESPN
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Exclusive live sports Access to games and events you won’t find elsewhere in the United States
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Original contentESPN Plus is the home of ESPN’s acclaimed 30-for-30 series and other ESPN Films -
Excellent football coverageFA Cup, Carabou Cup, La Liga and Bundesliga live within ESPN Plus. F1 races now available too.
Introduction
ESPN Plus remains a difficult one to place in the streaming service pantheon. You could feel aggrieved that ESPN has carved out a lot of stuff into something you have to pay extra for, or you could be happy that there are even more live sports available to you.
There’s golf from the PGA tour, live Major League baseball, football from La Liga in Spain, German Bundesliga and English domestic cup competitions. There’s tennis from Wimbledon and the US Open. There’s greater access to Formula One; more access to college basketball and college football. There’s UFC: boxing from Top Rank, and more. It also delves into non-mainstream sports like Lacrosse and various junior sports.
There’s loads of on-demand content too, like the prestigious 30-for-30 documentary series, and exclusive access to premium written content from ESPN’s top reporters and ‘Insiders’.
On the one hand it’s an excellent option for cord cutters. It offers bountiful access to live sports at an affordable fee. It’s even better value if you bundle up with Disney Plus and Hulu. However, it can be quite confusing deciphering what’s on ESPN Plus and regular ESPN networks. For example, ESPN has the rights to Formula 1 and in 2024 you can watch the races without a regular subscription to ESPN through cable/satellite. NFL Monday Night Football is on ESPN, but not many of those games will be simulcast on ESPN+
Indeed, there’s plenty more stuff you’ll think there is access to, but don’t unless you have an ESPN subscription through a pay TV provider. I’ll get into this more later.
Overall, ESPN will have more than a few essentials for sports nuts, but is that enough to justify holding a subscription all year round? Let’s delve in…
ESPN Plus is only available in the United States as an over-the-top streaming service. Content on ESPN Plus is not broadcast as part of any TV package that includes ESPN either.
It now costs more than during our last review in 2022. As of July 2024, ESPN has put the price up to $10.99 a month/$109.99 a year. In 2018 the service went live for $4.99 a month so the price has more than doubled in six years.
There are ways to get better value though, as part of the Disney Bundle ‘Trio’ which includes Disney Plus, ESPN Plus and Hulu (with ads). That costs $14.99 a month, essentially making ESPN+ $5 as part of the bundle. With Hulu and Disney+ (no-ads) it’s $24.99.
With the bundle, you’ll see ESPN+ content within the Hulu app, which is especially handy if you use Hulu for Live TV too.
Availability
- UKunavailable
- USARRP: $10.99
- Europeunavailable
- Canadaunavailable
- Australiaunavailable
Platforms
- ESPN Plus content is delivered via the main ESPN app
- Content also appears within the Hulu app
- ESPN Plus content is delivered via the main ESPN app
- Content also appears within the Hulu app
As you’d expect from a Disney company, the app is widely available on the major platforms. In the time since our last review, an app for LG smart TVs has been added.
However, if you’re looking for a dedicated ESPN Plus app, you won’t find it. Instead, you go through the main ESPN app and log in.
As for the ESPN app, you can see supported details here. In short, you’ll find it on Android phone, tablet, Android/Google TV, Chromecast). There’s Amazon Fire TV and tablet, iOS, Apple TV, both PlayStation 4and 5 along with Xbox One and Series S and X consoles.
Other streamers and TVs are covered by Roku players and TVs, Samsung Smart TVs and Xfinity/Cox/Xumo cable boxes.
Interface
- Live and upcoming content is easy to find
- Interesting curated collections
- Multicasts now available
If you’re a subscriber to ESPN+ but don’t have full fat ESPN, the best place to start is the dedicated ESPN+ tab within the ESPN app. This will show you what’s live now, complete with live coverage within the thumbnail image.
At the time of review for instance, Wimbledon was ongoing so you could select from action on 14 courts at the All-England Club. The PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic enabled you to pick the main feed, a selected group of two players, or a multicast with all the feeds.
You could also tune in to live action from the American Cornhole League, to give you an idea of the depth of coverage available. It’s just Americans lobbing beanbags into a hole on a wooden ramp, but strangely addictive.
Scroll down to see what’s live and upcoming, top picks of recently aired events (like the British Grand Prix, Phillies vs Braves baseball, et al), leagues, sports, conferences and spotlighted documentary films. There are also topical curated collections, such as “celebrating disability pride month.”
The proposition can still be slightly confusing in terms of sign in. To access ESPN+ content you’ll need to sign in with a separate account beyond the “TV Provider” login you’ll use to access content exclusive to the ESPN television channels. That ESPN+ login can also be your Disney login, if you opted for the bundle. That’ll get you everything ESPN has to offer.
If you do have access to both ESPN and ESPN+, the app’s Home tab is your friend. You’ll be able to watch what’s on the suite of ESPN channels live and on-demand, as well as all of the ESPN Plus content, which is marked appropriately.
If you attempt to access Plus-marked content without a sub, and you’ll be directed to log-in and sign-up. Additional content, like UFC PPVs, can be purchased within the app.
If you’re subscribed to the Disney bundle that includes ESPN+ and Hulu, you’ll also see your ESPN content within the Hulu app (below), which sometimes proves handy if you’re trying to decide between the game or catching up on Masterchef.
Features
- Basic feature set
- Offline downloads only for ESPN films and series
So, the major news here is the continued absence of 4K visuals. The maximum streaming resolution for ESPN Plus is Full HD with a maximum of 60 frames per second. The absence of 4K is mainly attributable to ESPN rarely shooting sporting events in 4K.
However, what it does shoot isn’t here. There are a few college football and basketball games the company airs in 4K but they’re a) not available in ESPN Plus and b) not available in the ESPN app at all. Even the feeds it acquires, like the BBC’s Wimbledon coverage broadcast in 4K HLG in the UK isn’t available at the max resolution.
In fact, the feature-set is pretty sparse compared to most streaming services I’ve reviewed. You can’t bookmark upcoming events, you can’t join live event from the start and there’s no recording facility.
There is no access to offline downloads for sporting events, but there are on-demand broadcasts from completed games. This is quite handy for MLB games on ESPN Plus for example, as you can choose the home or away team’s broadcast feed or (where available) the Spanish language commentary.
Offline downloads are restricted to ESPN series and films. However, considering that includes the mighty 30-for-30 collection, there’s plenty here to get you through a long plane ride.
Library
- Massive range of sports with something for most fans
- No access to the ‘crown jewels’ of US sport
- Every La Liga game lives here, home of the FA Cup
So, as this is a review of the ESPN Plus streaming service and not a review of the ESPN app I’m going to focus on library of sports available to Plus subscribers.
A big recent upgrade is that Formula 1 races can now be enjoyed via an ESPN+ subscription. For F1 fans, that’s probably a true reason to subscribe to ESPN+
Baseball comes via MLB (a few games a week), NCAA and Little League. American football comes with the occasional Monday Night Football game coverage of NCAA college football, the Canadian Football League, the NFL magazine shows.
For basketball, the rising popularity of the WNBA would be a coup for ESPN+, but the live ESPN games are not available with a subscription. The same goes for ESPN’s live NBA coverage.
There is live action from the NCAA (college), high school, NBA summer league, NBA G League, The Basketball tournament, FIBA events, NBA magazine shows. For MMA you get UFC – big events are extra on PPV, although there is some on demand access to re-air of PPC events and selected fights.
For Golf there are the Live PGA tour events, selected coverage of majors like the PGA Championship and the Masters. Football (or Soccer) is filled with Bundesliga, La Liga, Dutch Erdivisie, English domestic cups and the EFL Championship, and USL, NWSA, and NCAA (college).
Tennis coverage stretches to select and on-demand/archive coverage from the US Open, Wimbledon and the Australian Open. For hockey there are Live NHL games and NCAA field hockey; boxing features Live events and PPVs from Top Rank promotions and on-demand access to classic fights.
There’s also live coverage of sports like softball, lacrosse, polo, track and field, and equestrian.
However, it’s important to point out you won’t get access to nationally televised NBA, NFL or MLB games unless you also have access to the ESPN TV channels through your pay TV provider. What it does do, is add value to some tournaments, though. For example, at Wimbledon, for instance, you’ll get all the outside courts but the main ESPN feeds of top matches requires a TV subscription. There are rumblings ESPN might completely unbundle someday, but it is this not this day.
Performance
- No 4K, HDR or Dolby Atmos
The ESPN app works just fine. There’s nothing particularly special about it, but performance is reliable and there were no bugs of note during testing. ESPN only specifies “high speed internet” for streaming and, as there’s no 4K, I didn’t suffer from buffering of intermittent playback during our tests on an iPad 8th-Gen or the Apple TV app connected to a LG C1 OLED.
The playback experience is pretty forgettable on iPad, Apple TV, and the web. There are pause and rewind/forward options as well as casting options, closed captions, and a picture-in-picture mode to enable you to watch the video while browsing elsewhere. That’s about it.
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
You want the best of the rest
If you’re the fan of F1, La Liga, for instance, or just have to watch the FA Cup, ESPN Plus is almost essential. It’s also a great option if you want access to some top sport, without needing cable TV and regular ESPN. If you’re a complete sports nut that needs everything, then you’ll find a lot of it here. If you’re bundling Hulu and Disney+ anyway, the addition of ESPN+ only costs a fiver more a month.
You want the biggest events
If you’re happy with ESPN/ABCs regular offering of nationally televised top sports, you won’t necessarily get much of the cream of the crop from ESPN+. There’s a lot of competition for the streaming dollar and, even to a sports nut like me, it’s a tough sell.
Final Thoughts
I have mixed feelings about ESPN+. On one hand I love that if gives me access to English football’s FA Cup and Carabou Cup games. On the other, I can go weeks without watching delving in because most of the box office events are on standard ESPN, not here. It’s just those one or two things that keep me subscribing. The complete absence of 4K HDR was galling in 2022 and nothing has changed two years on.
How we test
We test every video streaming service we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Tested on a 2021 Ultra HD TV
Tested with mobile apps and smart TV systems
FAQs
No. Key, nationally televised content like NFL games, is only available through a TV subscription
No. Think of this as an add-on service to complement the output from the main ESPN networks. There is some overlap, but not much
There is no free trial
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As part of this mission, whenever we review a product we send the company a series of questions to help us gauge and make transparent the impact the device has on the environment.
We currently haven’t received answers to the questions on this product, but will update this page the moment we do. You can see a detailed breakdown of the questions we ask and why in our sustainability info page.
